Chapter 65: The Legend of the Reaper, Candidate for the Fifth Evil God

"So, Lord Rodere! If we wish to resurrect the Primarch, the most crucial step..."
"Is to purge the residual Warp energy lingering within him, is that correct?" Titus asked.

Lord Rodere was entirely right! The most critical issue in saving the Primarch remained the corruption of Warp energy.

Hearing this, Lord Rodere smiled and nodded.

"Then, Lord Rodere, how should we go about eliminating the Warp-inflicted damage on the Primarch? You must have a way, don't you?" Titus asked anxiously.

As the God-Emperor's chosen one, Lord Rodere surely possessed a method to strip away the Warp energy from the Primarch's body.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have brought it up!

"You guessed correctly. I do have a way, several in fact, and one of them is connected to the Aeldari," Lord Rodere said with a mysterious smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"The Aeldari? Those vile xenos! How—how could they possibly have a way to resurrect a Primarch?"
"And even if they did, why would they ever help us?" Titus exclaimed.

Clearly, Titus held a less-than-friendly attitude toward any race other than humanity, which was the standard norm across the Imperium.

"This relates to an ancient legend, an ancient Aeldari myth."

In the original timeline, a major reason why Belisarius Cawl had delayed for ten thousand years before finally resurrecting the Primarch was that he had not yet found a reliable method to purge the Warp energy; even the Armor of Fate could not guarantee a hundred percent success in reviving the Primarch.

Later, after the fall of the fortress world of Cadia during the Thirteenth Black Crusade, Belisarius Cawl, while in the midst of his flight, encountered the newly formed Aeldari Ynnari.

It was then that he found someone capable of definitively purging the Warp energy from a human body—the future scandalous Prince-Consort to Roboute Guilliman and future leader of the Ynnari.

Yvraine, who had been personally resurrected by the Aeldari god Ynnead, along with the sword of the Crone she wielded.

Only by using that blade to completely slay Roboute Guilliman, and then harnessing the divine power of the Aeldari death god Ynnead to reverse life and death, could the chaotic Warp energy be perfectly eradicated.

Finally, utilizing Belisarius Cawl's Armor of Fate, the Primarch Roboute Guilliman could be successfully resurrected.

Ynnead was the god of the dead for the Aeldari, their final hope in the struggle against Slaanesh and, indeed, the entire pantheon of Chaos.

"Lord Rodere, what does this Aeldari mythological tale have to do with saving the Primarch?" Titus asked.

"Titus, the intelligence you are about to hear is a profound secret across the entire universe, known to very few. I need you to give me your solemn promise that you will never leak these secrets to a living soul," Lord Rodere stated.

"Understood, Lord Rodere. Everything you and I discuss today shall be wiped entirely from my mind; I shall never mention it to anyone," Titus replied with a grave and respectful nod.

"Then let us start from the beginning. Among the four Dark Gods of the Warp, the youngest is Slaanesh, the Prince of Dark Delight, who was born near the end of humanity's Golden Age of Technology."

"As for the reason behind his/her birth, it was because those Aeldari brought about their own doom through their hedonism. It happened like this..."

"The very first cry uttered upon Slaanesh's birth instantly slew nearly ninety percent of the Aeldari population and swiftly devoured the ancient Aeldari pantheon residing within the Warp."

"This was the true cause of those terrifying Warp storms at the end of the Golden Age—the birth of a new Chaos God."

"Yet, a few Aeldari deities survived: the Laughing God, the Bloody-Handed God of War, and Isha, the Goddess of Life."

"However, aside from the Laughing God, the other Aeldari gods were shattered into countless fragments to become secret weapons known as Avatars of Khaine, while the Goddess of Life was imprisoned by Nurgle within his private garden, reduced to little more than a captive canary."

"Legend has it that this Aeldari death god will awaken only after the very last of the Aeldari race perishes, whereupon it will slay Slaanesh, the ultimate chaotic nemesis of the Aeldari." Lord Rodere briefly explained how the Aeldari had engineered their own destruction to birth Slaanesh.

"Utterly depraved. Those xenos reaped what they sowed; if not for their foolish indulgence, such a powerful Chaos God would never have been born," Titus said with profound anger.

The secrets he had heard today were indeed staggering; he had never imagined that one of the greatest Chaos adversaries facing humanity had originated in such a manner.

To think it was caused by the self-destruction of these damned xenos.

"This death god possesses the power to reverse life and death. If we can locate the mortal avatar of this death god's power, we can harness it to cleanse the Warp energy from the Primarch's body," Lord Rodere explained.

The Ynnari were not founded until the year 999; there should still be some time before that, or perhaps the Ynnari were currently in the process of forming.

The cost of awakening the Aeldari death god was simply too astronomical, requiring the sacrifice of the entire Aeldari race.

Yet, the Aeldari had discovered a new alternative: gathering all five Crone Swords.

As long as the five Crone Swords were held by the rightful wielder, the premature awakening of the Aeldari death god could be summoned.

After Yvraine was slain by the arena queen Lylheath, she was resurrected by this Aeldari death god, becoming its chosen prophet.

It was precisely for this reason that factions of Craftworld Aeldari, Drukhari, and Harlequins gathered together to establish the Ynnari.

In truth, prior to crossing over, Rodere had come across discussions on internet forums suggesting that the domain of this Aeldari death god extended far beyond merely governing Aeldari mortality.

The deaths of other races also contributed to the accumulation of its power.

The reason it was awakening in the 999th year of the 41st Millennium was that the entire galaxy had been completely shroud by death and despair, making the death god's power unprecedentedly vast.

Thus, it remained in a semi-awakened state, selecting its own mortal vessel in an attempt to manifest prematurely.

Among all negative emotions, death undoubtedly accounted for a monumental share.

Once this death god fully awakened, its combat prowess would undoubtedly rival that of the four Chaos Gods, firmly establishing it as a fifth Chaos God.

As for why a certain Goddess of Life was so weak? Forgive her, but the Goddess of Life represented merely a fraction of existence, and a pitifully small share at that!

The true embodiment of life was, in fact, Grandfather Nurgle; he was the true personification of living things.

The Aeldari death god, the Human Emperor, and Vaul the Smith all belonged to entities capable of ascending to become the fifth Chaos God.

As for the Great Devourer, that entity already stood on par with the four Chaos Gods, and perhaps even surpassed them.

"Lord Rodere, where on earth might we find this chosen avatar who wields the power of the death god?"

The chosen champion of the death god—setting aside whether they could even be found, even if they were located, how could anyone ever persuade them to assist?